Hong Kong Cleanup

Living in Hong Kong, it’s impossible to ignore our litter problem. We see empty plastic water bottles cluttering our beaches, cigarette butts dirtying our streets, and plastic bags of every color being blown about in the breeze. Besides being unsightly, all of this litter jeopardizes our health, as well as the health of wildlife and our collective environment. Plastic that enters our oceans takes 450 years to break down—and in the meantime, plastic particles can be ingested by fish and other sea life that we, in turn, consume. Garbage wraps itself around the beaks and heads of birds, endangered sea turtles, dolphins, and many other creatures, often killing them. It smothers and pollutes our waterways, putting our own health and safety at risk. Clearly, we need to take action to take clean up the litter from our neighborhoods, beaches, and parks, now.

Fruitful results marking Hong Kong Cleanup’s 15th anniversary!

The Hong Kong Cleanup Challenge, now in its 15th year, is the largest environmental community event in the region. It presents Hong Kong citizens with an opportunity to take action to make our city, and our world, a healthier and more beautiful place. 200,000 people have participated in past Cleanup Challenges, picking up five million kilos of trash from our beaches, trails, and neighborhoods. In the 2015 Challenge which ran from 19 September to 1 December 2015, a group of enthusiastic Hong Kong citizens came together to tackle this urgent problem we face every day, and they had great fun! The Nature Conservancy co-organized the Cleanup Challenge, since taking care of our city, and all life on our planet, is at the heart of our very mission.

In 2015 alone, the Hong Kong Cleanup event has brought together 75,623 participants to clean up an estimated 5,683,891 pieces of trash weighing in total 4,616,067 kg from 2,447 kilometres of Hong Kong’s coastlines, country parks and urban environments. To learn more click here.

Below we can see photos of the 2015 Hong Kong Cleanup campaign to mobilize 5% of Hong Kong’s population. The clever campaign, developed by Ogilvy and Mather, shows humans looking like a team of ants working together to carry a plastic bottle, cigarette and a candy wrapper.